


in the golden hour (it’s you i find)

by stevebuckiest



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Neck Kissing, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pet Names, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Teasing, blonde steve rogers, bucky calling steve sunshine, couch cushions on the floor, gratuitous sun related comparisons, sweet talking bucky barnes, this is very important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevebuckiest/pseuds/stevebuckiest
Summary: “Not an angel,” Steve says back quietly, but the heat his voice normally holds pales in comparison to how the rest of him is glowing hot. “Based off of where we’re at right now, I’m somewhat more of a sinner, aren’t I?”He’s joking, Bucky knows, but he still shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I know you better than anyone, babydoll, and you? You’re an angel.” He kisses him again, face cradled in once hand, gold-spun hair wrapped up in the other. “My golden boy sent straight from heaven, yeah?”(alternatively: bucky waxing poetic about how much of a soft spot he has for how blonde and freckled steve gets in the summertime)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 15
Kudos: 163





	in the golden hour (it’s you i find)

**Author's Note:**

> homoerotic song inspo for this includes but is not limited to: sunlight by hozier, golden by harry styles, sun by sleeping at last, golden hour by kasey musgraves, i see the light from the tangled soundtrack, and golden hour by matthew pinder.

Their apartment isn’t much. 

That’s just how things are these days, really- for them and for most of the world thanks to the current climate. Not enough to ration around in more parts of life than one- jobs, food, clothing, even _love_ if the way things are stirring up in Europe are anything to go by. The Depression, people are calling it. Fitting name. 

Still, through all of that- Bucky is incredibly glad that even if everything else is going to shit, at least he and Steve get to have this. _This_ being their tiny shithole of an apartment, small and cramped in with a kitchen that bleeds into an already cramped living room, a bedroom off to the side that Bucky knows without looking is wallpapered with Steve’s private sketches and newspaper clippings Bucky cut out of the comics Steve draws for money. 

Like he said, it isn’t much by any means- but it’s home. It’s his, and it’s Steve’s, and it’s a perfect slice of heaven where the two of them finally get to be together, even if it is only behind closed doors. It’s _perfect_. Drafty windows and perpetually jammed doors be damned. 

One of those windows is opened when he gets home that afternoon, let off early (because of how hard he’d been working lately, his boss had said yesterday- Bucky knows it was more than likely really because they didn’t have enough pay to go around this week) and granted the unusual privilege of being able to come home from work to a Steve that isn’t already fast asleep next to where he laid out Bucky’s pajamas on the bed next to him. Thoughtful, Bucky’s boyfriend is. 

Case and point, the small furrow of concentration dug into his brow right now where he’s leaning over his sketchbook in full view of Bucky as he steps through the door and kicks off his boots. The blonde boy is tucked under the open window Bucky noticed a few seconds ago, sat on top of a stack of their couch cushions placed in the square of warm sun streaming through the opened glass. Looking for the good light, most likely. 

Bucky smiles and shuts the door behind him quietly. Steve has noticed his arrival no doubt, but he’s in the zone based off of the frantic scribble of his pencil on paper, and who is Bucky to interrupt him from that? He settles for stepping into the kitchen and washing off his hands instead. He’s not about to risk bringing home any sickness to Steve. The world is already against them enough, Bucky doesn’t have any desire to help contribute to keeping them apart. 

That sentiment is what leads him over to sit next to Steve in the corner, grabbing an apple on his way out of the kitchen so he can crunch into it while he sets his head on Steve’s shoulder in lieu of a greeting. The couch cushions have him a bit higher up than usual, a fact Bucky happily takes advantage of. 

Eventually, after almost a solid three minutes of silence and sketching, Steve finally sets his pencil down, sliding his sketchbook down beside him with it. He wriggles his arm up and around Bucky’s neck to rest his graphite smudged hand on Bucky’s far shoulder, squeezing it affectionately as he kisses his hair. “Hey, Buck. How was work?”

“Hey, babydoll,” Bucky says, twisting his head to kiss Steve’s shoulder as well, pale Irish skin warm against his lips from the sunlight he must have been basking in all morning and afternoon. “It was fine, I’m just glad I got off early.” Then, nosing at Steve’s neck, “You been holed up down here all day? You know we have a desk in the bedroom.” Dragged off of the side of the street _just_ for Steve to draw on. 

Steve hums and lets Bucky kiss under his ear next. “It’s warmer down here.”

“You sound like the neighbor’s cat,” Bucky murmurs, bringing a hand up to cup at Steve’s lit up jaw, fine gold peach fuzz soft under his fingers. “Plopping down anywhere the light goes, soaking in the sunshine.”

“Cats live content lives, Buck. We could learn something from them.” Steve smiles down at him when Bucky leans back to plant a real kiss on his lips, short and sweet. When he blinks after, his eyelashes catch the light, and Bucky has to kiss him again, longer lasting this time just to savor in the sweetness. He’s sure his mouth still tastes like apple, but Steve’s mouth- that’s even sweeter. God, Bucky will never get tired of how his sweetheart tastes. 

By the time Bucky pulls away for a breath, Steve’s cheeks are flushed from the exchange, lit up lashes fluttering at Bucky’s thumb stroking at the soft skin under his eyes. That’s not the only part of him that’s flushed right now- Steve’s clad in a tank top and shorts, which has left his shoulders and the back of his neck where he’s been leaning down for hours (which has surely wreaked havoc on his back, Bucky might add) all dusted a rosy red that Bucky runs his fingers over after noticing. 

“Why didn’t you throw a shirt on, Rogers?” he sighs, fond exasperation showing through. “You know you always burn.”

“I’ve been busy working!” Steve protests, swatting at Bucky’s pressing fingertips where they’re poking at his neck to see the skin press white and bloom red again after. “It doesn’t hurt, anyways. You know it’ll be gone by tomorrow night.” He squirms when Bucky hits a spot where it tickles, huffing and yanking Bucky’s hair to get him to stop. “ _Bucky._ ”

“My little tomato,” Bucky teases, sliding his hand up and tugging on Steve’s hair right back, admiring how gold it glows in the sun even as Steve is jabbing a sharp elbow at his ribs. 

Privately, he thinks Steve looks more like a strawberry, right now- he always gets extra blonde in the sun and the summer, which Bucky adores, but he has to admit that he has a bit of an extra soft spot for the freckles that come out as well. Pinked up and pretty, splashed with freckles brought out by the light currently warming their entire apartment? Bucky feels dizzy with how much he wants to devour him. 

He settles for kissing him again instead, biting off Steve’s protest about being compared to _a god damn vegetable, Buck_ before it can get all the way out. Steve still narrows his eyes at him when they break free again, freckle dusted nose scrunching up and making Bucky kiss that as well. Steve’s cheeks pink even more at the gesture. As usual, he tries to hide the effect it has on him with some of his telltale snark. “All these kisses and no follow through, Barnes,” he murmurs. “What’s a man to think?”

“How about you don’t think at all?” Bucky whispers back, reaching over Steve’s lap to gently push his sketchbook off to the floor before following the motion by pushing himself up onto the couch cushions and sweeping an arm behind Steve’s back to tug him onto his lap. “Just _feel._ ”

Steve gives his usual perfunctory protests at the manhandling, but melts into it when Bucky slips a hand up under his tank top, calluses from work finally coming in handy to get Steve sighing into his mouth at the touch. He gets back up to his usual pushiness a moment later, though, darting a hand of his own up under Bucky’s still sweaty work shirt and tugging at the inseam to tell Bucky to take it off. Bucky does, and Steve is immediately all over him, pressing artist-thin fingers against the firmness of his pecs and getting Bucky burning warmer than even the sun is getting him, still beaming down on them both through the window frame. 

While he’s kissing Steve, Bucky has the distant thought of how clandestine it feels, kissing Steve what seems like so _openly-_ like he said, they’re only able to be together behind closed doors, but no one said anything about closed windows. He knows they’re high up enough for no one to peek through the window frame, and it’s not like either of them are being particularly loud for anyone to hear- but still, it feels secretive and daring in a way that makes him smile against Steve’s lips, Steve smiling back and shifting a thigh over to straddle Bucky’s lap fully. They’re sitting sideways to the window, so the beams are catching against them with every shift, and when Bucky opens his eyes half lidded- his breath hitches. 

Steve- Steve is always beautiful to Bucky, always golden, always glowing. But _now_ ...now he looks it even more, and Bucky feels like he’s going to burn up in the atmosphere of just how golden and glowing Steve Rogers is, caught up in his lap and looking like an angel, complete with a halo shining around his head. It kills him to break their kisses, but he has to. Steve has repeatedly said Bucky has a big mouth (ironic, coming from someone who can’t let _shit_ go when he hears something wrong), and right now Bucky can’t help but run it. 

He said he had a soft spot for him like this- freckled and fiery- and he meant it. He always means things when it comes to Steve. 

“Look so good like this, sunshine,” he breathes, pulling Steve back by the hair from his next attempt at searching a kiss and shushing the protesting whine that follows when he doesn’t find it. He loosens his fingers to comb through the blonde strands once Steve is pulled back and panting, lips red and shining slick with spit in the glare of sun hitting his face and lighting it up, beaming across the bridge of his crooked nose and catching in the blue of his eyes. He’s blinking at the brightness of it, and Bucky laughs lowly, bringing up his free hand to shield him from it, cupping him in to their own private little world. “My angel.”

“Not an angel,” Steve says back quietly, but the heat his voice normally holds pales in comparison to how the rest of him is glowing hot. “Based off of where we’re at right now, I’m somewhat more of a sinner, aren’t I?”

He’s joking, Bucky knows, but he still shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I know you better than anyone, babydoll, and you? You’re an angel.” He kisses him again, face cradled in once hand, gold-spun hair wrapped up in the other. “My golden boy sent straight from heaven, yeah?” 

“Yours,” Steve whispers back. “Whatever I am, it’s yours.” He grips at Bucky’s shoulders, warmed from the sun, sweat beginning to slide between them the longer they sit pressed together. 

Bucky might blame it on heat daze and dehydration later, but he thinks right then that if people could melt, if he and Steve could drip down and pool on the floor in the sun- they’d finally be one, mixed together just like they belong. It’s a silly, sappy thought, one that’s interrupted by Steve’s next kiss and blunt dig of his palms, but it’s one he has anyways. 

When Steve eventually strips himself of his tank top and presses his formerly covered skin against Bucky’s own, warmed and wanting from the sun and Steve’s touch, Bucky sighs at the cool press of it. His fingers curl against Steve’s hair, bodies shifting together with arousal pooled slow and syrupy sweet. “Angel,” he breathes again, eyes fluttering open just to see Steve’s sunlit strands once more, freckles flashing across his skin like stars Bucky wants to stare at every night of his life. “You know why I call you sunshine?”

Steve gives a shy tilt of his hips down contrasted by his bite back of an answer. “Because you’re a hopelessly romantic asshole?”

Bucky smiles, but shakes his head. “S’cause you’re the brightest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs, removing his hand shielding Steve from the sun to rest on his waist instead. “Always fired up and fierce. You’ve been burning bright since we first met, and sometimes I don’t know how I’m not blinded, but,” he kisses him chastely, “I see you. I always see you, Steve.”

If Steve is the sun, Bucky likes to think that he would be some version of Icarus, the boy from the stories who got too high and flew too close- only in this case, the sun isn’t letting him fall. He’s holding him close and letting him bask in his warmth, pressed against him on a stack of threadbare couch cushions, half naked in their shitty apartment turning Bucky’s face towards him to kiss him like a sunflower searching for the light. Bucky finds him. He always will. 

“I think the heat has gotten to your brain, Buck,” Steve hums, freckled nose brushing against Bucky’s own tanned one, browned by months of long days at the docks like the rest of him is. Steve might not tan, only gets burns that turn to freckles, but Bucky does. “Talking nonsense while we’re kissing like always.”

Bucky smiles and lets Steve move his body down against him. “S’not the heat, sweetheart. It’s you. Make me a little crazy sometimes, I can’t help it.” He sighs in contentment when Steve brushes a hand over the arousal warming its way through the lower half of him. 

“Maybe _I_ can help you, then,” Steve says lowly, nudging his hand against him again. “Sweet talker.”

“Sweet _heart,”_ Bucky coos back, toes curling when he pulls back and is welcomed by the sight of Steve’s chest glistening with the sweat where they were pressed together. “You’re driving me crazy, looking like this.” He tugs on one of his blonde strands playfully, hair already messed up from where his fingers were formerly tangled. “Little lion.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Steve huffs and lets Bucky lean forward to lick it off. “ _And_ you’re filthy. C’mon, Buck, are you just gonna tease me and talk crazy the whole time? Don’t you wanna take advantage of your time off?”

Bucky just licks up his neck in response, salt of it stinging on his taste buds. “Can it, blondie.”

Steve laughs. “Oh? No more _sunshine?_ ” 

“You’re always my sunshine,” Bucky hums. “You just get a different name when you’re being a punk. ‘Sides, maybe I just wanna take care of you in bed. Couch cushions on the floor aren’t exactly the most comfortable spot.” Steve’s bangs flop in his face, and Bucky brushes the gold of them back with still reverent fingers. 

He loves the summertime, the blonde and the freckles it brings along with it. Gets Steve ripe for the taking like a summer peach still on the tree. 

And Bucky is nothing if not a hungering man. 

“They worked just fine when we were teenagers, Barnes,” Steve shoots back. “If you want me in bed, you’re carrying me.”

“And if I’m carrying you, you’re not kicking,” Bucky mutters, kissing at Steve’s neck and squeezing his arms around his waist, both of their skin singing warm at the contact and the fading light moving over them as the sun sinks down outside. It probably is time for them to move if they’re taking this any further with how dusk is coming on- as warm as Steve makes him, once the sun gets blocked out, their apartment gets drafty as hell even without the window open. 

“I do not _kick_!” Steve exclaims, his own arms circling around Bucky’s neck. 

“You’re an angel, but you’re also a little shit,” Bucky says, nose pressing against the sunburn still stark against the pale expanse of the rest of his smooth skin. The rest of the room might be slowly cooling, but Steve is still hot to the touch. He kisses the freckles on Steve’s shoulders, up into the moles on his neck, then his cheeks and nose- mapping the stars, as it were. His voice is a whisper against the sun kissed skin of his face. “You _kick,_ blondie.”

“But you’ll carry me anyways,” Steve whispers back, smile shining when Bucky pulls away with a sigh and a brush of his hair out of his face, sweat stringing the strands together. 

“I will,” Bucky willingly admits. “‘Cause I love you.”

Steve curls his fingers into the nape of Bucky’s neck. “I love you back, Buck.” The words slip out just as easily as when Bucky lifts Steve up by his ass a moment later, Steve letting out a surprised noise until Bucky kisses him quiet and starts stumbling their way to the bedroom to tumble them both into bed and get to work on heating _that_ room up instead. 

The sun is sinking behind the buildings outside, and Bucky knows that they’ll eventually have to come out of bed and their room later for dinner and to shut the window again, but he doesn’t mind ignoring that for the time being. 

In the night and in their apartment might be the only time they get to wholly have each other without having to worry about the people outside, world finally asleep while the two of them are awake in their bed and loving each other silently in the dark- but in truth, Steve’s smile against Bucky’s lips when they kiss is always enough to make him feel like the sun is still shining over them as bright as when they were kissing under the window. 

Because his sunshine is still shining. He always is. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first foray into prewar stevebucky so i hope it was enjoyable for those of you who took the time to read <3 thank you, and as usual: feedback is greatly appreciated.


End file.
